The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker
bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest
pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of
rest after fatigue.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Nevertheless, in the system of Copernicus there are found many and
great inconvenience for both the loading of the earth with a triple
motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the
company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common,
is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility
in nature, by representing the sun and stars as immoveable, especially
being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon
revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions
of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he
introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer....
